Show and Tell

This is a bit of show and tell from many years ago. I thought I might drag out some of the old photos of quilts I have made over the years and scan them. This quilt used and lot of my hand-dyeds, some that I had overprinted with leaves from the garden, and some drapery fabrics. The dark areas don't show up very well in this photo. I really should re photograph many of my quilts with the digital camera.I've been shifting around sewing machines this week. So....you think. What's the big deal. You pick it up you put it somewhere else. No. I'm talking about industrial machines. They weigh a ton. They have a large solid table with a large heavy motor that is attached under the table. The head of the machine (the bit that actually sews) can be lifted out of the table. I can barely lift them, they're so heavy. I have five of them that I use for my business, well four really, cause one I had set up for machine quilting in my studio. They have sooo much more room under the arm of the machine than a domestic machine. These have about 12". I needed to swap this one for a different one that had been geared down and was a bit more controllable at slower speeds. So I had to wait until someone came to visit that could help me lift them. Where's a man with muscles when you need one?

Hot Hot Fabric

Here's a few of the pieces that I tray-dyed yesterday in all that hot hot weather. Quick and easy to do and always a surprise how it turns out. Definitely too hot for ironing it so that will have to wait.

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

It got to 44 deg C today (thats 111 deg F) . Much the same yesterday and expected to be the same tomorrow. So what do you do when your hot hot hot? Well I've been itching to do some direct dyeing for a while but that would need space to spread out fabric and that would mean working in the shed. Definately not a job to do in this heat so I contented myself with some tray dyeing. I have quite a bit of print fabric that I want to overdye. You don't see the print on the reverse side of the fabric and when it's been dyed it doesn't look any different to plain fabric. Turns something I wouldn't use into some thing useable and doesn't cost anything.

Tomorrow I'll show you how it turns out.

Thumbs up - Thumbs down?

I'm not really sure what I think about this quilt top. I put it together over a year ago. Occasionally I pin it up on the design wall and wonder if I feel like doing something to it. Whether I might use the other bit of hand-dyed pinned up next to it in a border, or just wad it up in a ball and toss it. It's probably the colours. I'm just not a yellow, green, orange person.

I have no recollection of what was going through my head when I started it. Let me know what you think.

Real Age

Are you in good shape for your age? I did an interesting quiz today. Occasionally I watch Oprah and the other day they were doing one of their medical type shows with Dr. Oz. They had members of the audience do this quiz with lots of questions on different aspects of their lifestyle, health, diet, exercise, cholesterol etc and from this they determine your REAL AGE not just your calendar age. Quite a nasty surprise for some of the audience members. Someone may be 45 but due to being overweight, smoking or not eating right their real age could be closer to 60. Or, your real age could actually be less than your calendar age.

Well I was quite surprised to find out that my real age is 45, 6 1/2 years less than my calendar age. I'm 5'5", 61kg (134lb), I exercise, don't smoke, hdl:ldl ratio is 1:1, BP is on the low side of normal, low stress, rarely eat junk food or take away, and I'm very careful about what I do eat. People usually say I don't look 51.

Try it http://www.realage.com/. Helps if you've had a recent blood test and know your cholesterol etc. In Australia we use mmol/l and in the US mg/dl. Just multiply by 38.67 to convert cholesterol and 88.57 to convert triglicerides.

So?....watcha been doing for 2 years? Part 2

OK its Part 2. Don't groan. I said I'd give you the abridged version. Then we'll get on to the quilty stuff. I suppose the most memorable bit of 2008 was ending up in hospital for a week in December for a bowel resection. I have Crohn's Disease and although I haven't had a flare up for over 2 years some previous bouts had caused some problems and the surgeon needed to remove about a 12" section. I seemed to recover from it very quickly and even got back to the gym after a few weeks. Nothing too strenuous.


I managed to get quite a bit of hand sewing done while I was in the hospital. I've been doing this very traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden (English Paper Piecing) for most of last year. It's my 'take to meetings' project when I can't get to a sewing machine. It might get finished in another year or so. It needs to be about twice as big as it is.

So?....watcha been doing for 2 years?

I noticed the other day that this is the 2 year bloggerversary of my last post and as good a reason as any to get back to blogging.

Quite a few things have happened since then and I've been sitting here trying to remember them all. Don't worry. I'll just give you the abridged version.

I suppose the main change has been that my mother moved in to live with me at the start of 2008. (remember I told you - only child of an only child of an only child.....) She turned 90 last week and drives me insane most days. She had been living on her own since my dad died 7 years ago and in mid 07 had a pacemaker fitted. A couple of months after that she had a fall and broke her wrist. It became clear that it wasn't really a good idea for her to be living on her own. This necessitated the recently relocated studio in bedroom 2 to relocate again to bedroom 3 so that she could have the bigger room. And Daniel (son No.2 age 24) to relocate himself entirely to his fathers house, a few kilometres away, instead of living in both places.
Daniel spent a month in Greece with his girlfriend in July 07 and then went to Scotland for a couple of weeks.
I'll tell you some of the other things next time.
Only a modest amount of non work related sewing was accomplished. A few quilts, including this one using my own hand-dyes.

MeMe: 6 Weird Things About Me

I've decided to take up Susan's MeMe challenge - 6 Weird Things about me, that she did recently on her blog. Where do I begin? There are so many....... :] I won't include my 'I hate christmas' one. I already had a good rant about that a couple of weeks ago. So lets just call this the first 6.

1. I am the only child, of an only child, of an only child, of an only child on my maternal line (which after all is the only line any of us can really be sure of :]) and on that line my ancestry in Australia goes back to the 3rd Fleet. In 1791 my great, great, great, great grandfather Thomas Alwright was sentenced to 7 years in the colony. Shacked up with gggg granny 3 years later and produced the obligatory tribe of kids (most of whom died). The next generation is about where multiple progeny ended and onlies began.

2. I hate shopping and spending money. I refuse to have a credit card and the thought of having any debt at all would keep me awake at night. I may not have a lot and it may not be fancy but everything I have I own.

3. I used to jump out of perfectly good aircraft and plumett to earth at 200 kph. I'd refer to skydiving as my mid-life crisis sport. I turned 40 and for several years after used to do this most weekends. I also love flying. The smaller the plane the better. I'd love to try hang-gliding one day.

4. I can be rather obsessive, neat, tidy, detail oriented, fussy, meticulous, precise. Can't stand clutter, mess and dust catchers all over the house. This may be just my OTT response to my mother who has always been the complete antithisis of this :]

5. I am quite mechanically minded and have no problem in pulling something apart to repair it. I probably have more tools in my shed than the average bloke (and I know how to use them) and I am quite happy servicing my car or doing any repairs that are needed.

6. And for one of the weirder weird things....I can recite the alphabet 4 different ways. The normal way. Backwards (zyxwvu....). The keyboard way (qwertyuiopasdf.....) and alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, echo, foxtrot........

So there you go. Doesn't that make you feel that little bit saner now?

now I tag...............Sheila

Results of the Dyeing Day

This is the result from all those little containers in the last post. It's about 10 metres or so. They always look totally different once they're washed and ironed. Think I'd better get myself motivated to actually do something with them. The problem is often not a lack of ideas but too many ideas. This becomes indecision - which becomes procrastination. Does anyone else get like this?

Another dyeing day

When you run your own business from home, one of the benefits is deciding 'its too hot to work today'. Given that I work from a large metal shed this is not so unreasonable. Sewing in there on a day like this is just a bit too warm so I've been inside with the air-con on full blast having a lovely time dyeing this afternoon. Yes, I know this photo looks much the same as the last dyeing one I posted. Thats how I do it when I'm only working with smaller pieces. Can't show you the finished pieces till tomorrow. I've put it all the containers outside in the heat to 'age' :] I'll wash it out in the morning.
I'm going to take up Susan's challenge to do the '6 weird things about me' MeMe she has just done on her blog. I've been thinking about it all day and having trouble limiting it to only 6 :] Well you already know a couple from my previous post. Might just need a bit longer to think about it.

The return of the recalcitrant blogger with a christmas rant

OK confession time. I hate Christmas. I have never enjoyed Christmas and never will. It holds no warm and fuzzy memories for me. I have been a much happier person since I refused to participate in it. No tree. No decorations. No presents (given or received). Nada. And thankfully, not since I was divorced nearly six years ago, have I had to endure the excruciating ritual known as the family christmas party. Its a time of year I just grit my teeth and can't wait until its over. As for the whole Father Christmas business....we bring our children up telling them the importance of truth and honesty and believing in what we as their parents tell them and then Christmas rolls around and we tell them the biggest whopper of them all.
As far as my side of the family goes, there is only mum and me these days. Mum will be 88 in a few days time. She comes and stays with me for a week over Christmas. I'm the only child, of an only child, of an only child, of an only child on my maternal line, and not a lot different on the paternal. So not a lot of extended family there. Explains a lot....do I hear you say?

Christmas has now,thankfully, been and gone and the new year has begun. I don't really make new year's resolutions but I plan on going out and having fun more this year. I feel like I've been a bit of a hermit during this past year. And now that at least part of the studio has moved into the house I plan on spending a lot more time in there too.

It's not going to fit

Well I've spent nearly a week moving things from the garargio into the new studio and I've come to the conclusion that there is no way even half of it is going to fit. All I can do is move the stuff I use the most and leave the less used stuff out in the garargio along with the finished quilts, backing fabrics, other fabrics, batting and more general sewing odds and ends. This is about a third of the fabric stash and you can't really see where its come from. So rather than moving the studio I think I've just acquired another one :]

flat-packed frustration

What is it about flat-packed furniture that can turn a normally sane, rational, logical, reasonably intelligent person into a frustrated, raving, tearing her hair out, lunatic? Could it be the instruction sheet written by someone whose only knowledge of english is via an asian/english dictionary? Could it be the bits they fail to mention have a right or wrong way up until you have numerous other bits connected to them? Arrrghh! Two shelving units took about 2 hours and several glasses of wine. Perhaps it was the wine :]
What brought about this exercise in frustration you may ask. Well, for about the last 20 years my studio had been located in a converted garage, known affectionately as 'the garargio' (garage/studio). It's 9'6" x 18'6" with a fairly low ceiling and is absolutely crammed with stuff. My constant complaint has been that because it is separate from the house I am less inclined to go out there in the summer (because the house has air-conditioning) or in winter (because I have to go out in the cold/rain etc). Also, it meant leaving husband and kids inside when I wanted to sew (yes, I know this could be seen as an advantage). But time moves on and so do husbands and kids. Now with an ex and kids grown up, I've been thinking an inside studio, in the 2nd bedroom, would be much more enticing and conducive to creativity. I know its not all going to fit - 16sq mtrs into 10sq mtrs just doesn't go - but the fabric and some of the machines will and the garargio can still be used for storage. So the great studio relocation is underway. This has also necessitated the puter relocation from the 2nd bedroom into the dining room.

junk junkie

Just been across the road at the school to vote and it looks like lots of people have taken advantage of the day to have garage sales around here. I bought a big cardboard box full of quilt fabric for $10 (like I really need more fabric :]) but I sure wasn't going to pass it up at that price. Some bits more useful than others. Rather a nice bit of batik style with gold printing. Bought a few other bits and bobs (non quilty) and a VCR for $5 that she assured me worked the last time it was used. Haven't tried it yet. Boy I'm a sucker for other peoples junk :]
Yesterday afternoon was spent screen printing. No, nothing very arty I'm sorry. Just dozens of the fabric labels I use in my business. It was getting a bit warm and the ink was drying in the screen but I'd run out so I needed to do it.

mandala paintings

The first time I heard the word 'mandala' was in 1984. We were on holiday in Beechworth and called into a quilt shop. Katie Pasquini's book Mandala had just arrived from the US. Fabulous quilts based on mandalas. I immediately had to buy a sketch pad/compass/ruler and start designing my own. Mandalas are found in different forms all over the world. For thousands of years different cultures have created designs in this circular/symetrical format. From Tibetan Buddhist sand paintings to designs on Islamic mosques. After a few mandala style quilts I moved on to other things. About four or five years ago this format started coming to my attention again and I started doing mandala paintings using acrylic paint. I use a lot of gold metallic and gold dimentional paint. Think this style appeals to my obsessive/'can't stand to be messy' nature :] This one is 80cm sq. I haven't done any painting for about six months. I've been getting back to quilting.

Bendigo Swap

I've been getting myself ready for days. The annual pilgrimage to the Bendigo Swap Meet this weekend. The biggest swap meet in Australia. Thousands of stalls in the Bendigo Show Grounds. This is the sixth year I have had a stall there for my business (not quilt related). I hook up my little caravan and camp on-site along with most of the other stall holders. They're queueing up at the gates when they open at 6am Saturday morning and if doesn't ease up till nearly 7 at night. Then Sunday morning it starts all over again. It's often hot and dry and dusty and by the time I drive the 2 1/2 hours home Sunday night I'm exhausted and I hardly have any voice left. It's hard work and I'm there on my own but it brings in a lot of business over the following year. Swap Meets are like huge 'trash & treasure' markets/garage sales where individuals or businesses can have a stall selling whatever they like. It's usually fairly blokey stuff, car parts, tools and assorted junk. It used to take me about 8 hours to walk around and see everything but since I've had the stall I don't get to do that anymore.

dyeing the rejects

Even after so many years of hand dyeing fabric I still sometimes end up with pieces that don't quite look as good as I would have liked. They might be a bit pale and wishy washy or a blah colour or for what ever reason end up in the pile I mentally label 'don't think I'd use that in a million years'. I've been looking at this pile of rejects recently and thinking 'overdye'. Why waste perfectly good fabric if I can turn it into something I could see myself more likely to use. So every now and then when I get the urge I toss a bunch of them into small buckets and play. This urge came upon me at about midnight last night. I've just washed them out and hung them on the line but it looks as if we're about to get a storm here very soon so I might have to dash out and grab them.

.......more sewing machines

Seems like I spent a large chunk of yesterday fiddling with sewing machines. Gave a couple of them a thorough grease and oil change and set up the 2 Singer industrials specifically for machine quilting. The 12" throat straight sewer I set up for free-hand quilting - removed the feed dog and made a new cover plate with a single small hole for the needle. Industrials may not have a lot of the fancy bells and whistles but they are infinitely adjustable and totally unkillable. The 2 Singers normally take long shank feet but I can loosen a screw and drop the whole shaft down to take short shank or even up to take the longer pfaff feet. Also I can get the MR (multi-range) needles for them. These are the needles that the long arm quilting machines take. They are designed to avoid skipped stitches when stitching in any direction. (Normal needles are really only designed for stitching forward)
This machine actually cost me nothing. We were having the bi-annual neighbourhood hard rubbish collection and I was driving home this particular day just as a lady was dragging it out onto the foot path. Slammed on the brakes and backed up. 'You throwing it out? Can I have it?' 'Doesn't work' she said 'Don't care' I think to myself 'It can be fixed'. As it turned out it was only a short in the motor where some of the insulation had broken away. It ended up costing me $17 for a new pulley and belt to gear it down because it just went too fast even for me.
The other Singer machine (a 20u) does a 9mm wide zig-zag which is unusual for an industrial. I've set this up for machine quilting with the foot on. Adjusted the foot height and pressure so that I don't need a walking foot and tweeked a few other things. So now I all I need to do is quilt something on them. This one still has a bit to do in the border.

Sewing machines

Sewing machines. They just seem to accumulate around here. Turn around and ..... woops ..... there's another one. Well perhaps not quite that fast. It's just that I was trying to total them up recently and I think there's 18 at last count. Now, there's 4 vintage hand-crank ones and there are my 2 (yes 2) prized featherweights (a 221 & a 222). I have some industrial machines too. Two industrial zig-zags and two industrial straight sewers (+ another one in pieces) and an industrial 3 thread overlocker. Plus my domestic overlocker. Now there's a few modern domestic machines as well. My trusty Pfaff 1473, an Elna Lotus sp, another Elna that belonged to Mum and then there's a lovely old Bernina 720 that I couldn't help myself from buying at a garage sale down the street for $20 last year. How many's that....... 17........ I think I've forgotten one. Oh thats right, the other one is the Seiko compound feed (walking foot + needle feed) industrial. I's a really heavy duty sewing machine. It will sew through 16 layers of vinyl (and fingers) like a hot knife through butter and takes a size 24 needle! that looks like a 3 inch nail with an eye. I run a business from home so I use the industrial ones most days.

The two Featherweights

and a lovely time was had by all (except Daniel)

Went along today to the Scquilters meeting (on- line quilt group) in Carrum. I haven't been before. Well not quite true, I got there quite late one other time (after class) and everyone was packing up to go. What a lovely bunch of about 30 very friendly ladies. Made me feel most welcome. Its a shame I can't get there on a regular basis but it clashes with a class I teach and it was just that through various injury and illhealth (theirs not mine) that I decided we'd all have a week off. I spent a productive day sewing the binding on the wagga (see previous post) after spending a substantial chunk of the previous evening unpicking the quilting in the border of it. The evening came to an unhappy end when DS Daniel came home from work at 11.30pm. His car had been vandalised at work. Only his second day at his new job. The rotten little @%#*&% s had sprayed styrofoam filler into the front grill of the car and the exhaust pipe. So we spent the next hour with a kitchen knife each trying scrape it out. And to top it of - today his girlfriend dumps him.